After I lifted the body, I noticed that the gas tank had been patched with fiberglass. My guess would be that there was some sort of leak and the previous owner fixed it by layering on fiberglass until it stopped.

After doing all this work to restore the corvette, the last thing I would ever do is put a redneck rigged gas tank back on my car just to save a few bucks. I ended up finding a brand new Eckler's gas tank off CraigsList for $100.

I started off by removed the cap retainer from the old tank. I cleaned it thoroughly and will use it on the new gas tank.

Even though I am going to replace the fuel sending unit, I still removed it to see what kind of shape it was in. The only thing that was holding it in place was the locking ring that surrounds the edges of the sending unit.

As you can see the tank and sending unit have seen better days.

Since I wanted to keep the steel look but didn't want the tank to rust up, I sprayed the tank with a layer of clear coat. I used Rust-Oleum crystal clear. The product did what it was designed to do, but unfortunately I didn't spray it as well as I should have. I had to do a little touching up but overall, it was acceptable for a gas tank that most people will never see.

After the tank had dried, I installed the new sending unit. It was very simple to install. You need to make sure you have your seal in place and that the nozzle is pointed in the right direction Then just secure it all into place with the locking ring.

With the sending unit installed, I started cleaning up the cap and cap retainer. I first sand-blasted them in the blast cabinet and then wire-wheeled the bottom of the cap and the inside of the cap retainer to give it a smooth look. Next, I masked over off the areas I wired wheel and painted the rest. You don't want to paint any part of the cap retainer that will be exposed to gas because eventually the paint will flake off and go into your tank. I left those areas bare and lightly wiped it with WD-40 to prevent flash rust.

With everything painted, I can install the cap retainer on the top of the tank. When I bought the new tank, it came with new bolts with seals. If you want to use your original bolts, make sure you find some way to replace those bolt seals. Mine were completely unusable.

Now that the gas tank is ready to go, I will put it away until I get the chassis rolling.

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